Minister Tarana Halim firm on blocking porn sites

State minister for posts and telecommunications Tarana Halim has expressed her determination to block pornog raphy websites, keeping in mind the country’s social norms and values The minister has directed the technical committee that was formed by the Post and Telecommunications Division(PTD) earlier to find out ways to block the porn sites generated both locally and internationally.

Talking to The Independent yesterday afternoon, she said the internet service providers would have to block the porn sites that are being generated inside the country. “For the international sites, we’re developing a mechanism that would expose people who are signing in to those sites,” she said, adding, “so that people would refrain from logging on to the porn sites fearing expo- RTReplying to a giregtieriiwlieueralt possible to bleek the porii sites, Tarana Halim sajd: “It’s difficult to block cent per cent porn sites, but we could block 80 per cent of them, it would be a huge uccess for us.

Earlier, on November 28, he PTD formed a commit tee to prepare a database of the websites spreading pornography” and”objectonable content” in cyber space. The committee, headed by the director general of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission(BTRC), was asked to prepare a set of recom mendations to stop pornography and similar contentin cyberspace. Representatives of the PTD, information ministry, National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre(NTMC), internet service providers, mobile phone oper ators and law enforcement agencies are also in the committee. “We’ve asked the committee to come up with a specif- ic technical proposal and recommendations to block the porn sites,” Halim said. She said the committee would submit a list of porn sites and the technical proposal within 15 days from the formation of the committee.

According to the PTD officials, the committee would prepare a list of pornography websites and objection- able content and formulate a three-tier technical propos i al to stop potndgraphy objectiortable content The thfee’riei proposal will include immediate, interim and final action plans. Besides, mass awareness will also be generated to stop pornography and objectionable content in the Country. country has now over 6.68 According to the BTRC, the crore internet users, of which 6.30 crore users browse through mobile phones.